Annie felt the rumbling in her bones as the large aircraft flew overhead. It was pretty low to the ground, but it seemed to be moving in a deliberate pattern over the trees. In a matter of seconds, men were jumping out of their foxholes, cheering and chanting as they ran in the direction the plane had gone in.
Shrugging, Annie joined the group as they bolted for the tree line before jumping out into the open, waving their hands wildly up at the planes in the sky. Red smoke bombs were dropped from above, landing just meters away from the trees and dousing the field in crimson smoke.
Lipton, who was standing beside Eugene and Annie, had a smile wider than anyone had seen in a long while. Everyone watched as the planes turned back around and headed toward them again. As they got closer though, they tipped their noses down and started shooting.
Bullets peppered the ground around the troopers' feet and one by one they darted back into the forest for cover. A few of the men started shooting at the planes, pissed off that their own aircrafts had just shot at them, but Lipton put a stop to that real quick.
"Sergeant, I don't understand, it was our own planes!" Eugene was beyond shocked.
Lipton shushed Eugene as a whole new fleet of planes flew over. "C-47s." He recognized the sound. "They're bringing supplies. It's a drop. It's a drop, come on!"
Parachutes with duffle bags full of supplies dropped from the planes over Bastogne and hope was filling the men and women of Easy. Along with Eugene, Lipton, and a few others, Annie rode into town to pick up some supplies for the men on the front.
Heading into the church-turned-aid station with Eugene, Annie was quick to pick up as many boxes of bandages, morphine, plasma, and anything else that she could. As the small medic turned to carry the boxes back out to the jeep, she spotted Renée in the corner of the room, holding the hand of a severely injured man, whispering to him about how he would get to go home soon.
Annie had whispered those same words to many men before, so she was able to tell when they were a promise or a just white lie.
By the time Annie made it back outside the jeep was half full and wouldn't be able to take all the men back in one trip, so while Eugene stayed behind to scrounge up as much stuff as he could, Annie rode back with the first load of crates and two other men.
Easy Company was thrilled to have a restock on the things they were desperately in need of, and as Annie handed out food packages, smokes, and various other items, she finally, for once in weeks, felt like she was actually helping.
It was a small gesture, but seeing the smile on Malarkey's face as she passed him a box of smokes was enough to make her whole day better.
●●●
Staring out at the German line where the approaching tanks were throwing snow up into the air in large white clouds, Annie swallowed hard as Lipton ran by, warning the medics that it was about to get really busy for them.
Two or three foxholes up, much closer to the front of the pack, Margot was sat beside Babe, her hand resting on her M1 Browning and her finger ghosting over the trigger.
The Germans were coming in for an attack, and just like that Lieutenant had said before Easy marched into the front lines, they had artillery coming out of their asses. Tanks, guns, mortars. You name it, they had it.
All Easy had were guns and their determined 1st Sergeant, Carwood Lipton.
Turning to the foxhole next to her, Margot locked eyes with Smokey and gave him a nod, wishing him luck. Smokey smiled, nodded back, and then collapsed into his foxhole. His hot coffee spilled all over him as the Kraut bullet went in one shoulder and out the other.
Margot immediately turned her head away as Smokey gasped out. She couldn't watch another person die right in front of her. She just couldn't.
Jumping up, Annie grabbed Eugene by the collar of his jacket and dragged him along with her. For some reason, he seemed to be in a trance, but the woman wasn't going to let it get in the way of saving Smokey's life. The two medics hauled the injured man out of the hole and dragged him back further into the cover of the trees.
"I can't feel my legs!" Smokey cried out loud enough for everyone to hear—loud enough for Margot to hear.
Before anyone could worry about the wounded man, the German tanks emerged from the treeline. "Here they come!" someone announced. "Machine guns open fire!"
Margot's finger pulled back hard on the trigger as she sprayed the tanks and main-gunners. Some of her bullets hit their targets but most ricocheted off of the tank armour. Then the troops came out and it was terrifyingly obvious that Easy was outnumbered.
Running over to the chaos, Lipton looked down at Smokey as he sat in Annie's and Eugene's arms. He was weeping and hyperventilating, and Margot could hear his laboured breathing in between the bullets she was firing.
Half of Margot's brain was focused on the approaching Germans, the other half was worried about Smokey. Turning her head, the machine-gunner watched as Annie and Eugene dragged Smokey further into the forest and back toward where a jeep would be able to take him into town. The woman locked eyes with her former partner for a split second before an explosion pulled her back to what was more important.
Margot wasn't sure how many times she fired at the enemy that day—maybe one-hundred, maybe one-thousand—but she was sure that no matter how many Krauts she killed, it didn't make up for the one bullet that pierced Smokey.
Margot only came back to her senses fully when she was back at camp again, hours after the gunfire had stopped. Annie had approached her and pulled her aside, so immediately Margot knew it wasn't good news. "Smokey's alive." Annie got that part out first. "But he's paralyzed. Waist down, nothing."
Margot knew that she should have been relieved that he was alive, but she couldn't stop herself from focusing on the anger that coursed through her. Paralyzed wasn't dead, but then again, it wasn't fully alive either. Smokey and she had had endless conversations about their lives back home and what they liked to do, and it upset Margot to no end that he would never be able to do a lot of those things again.
"Thank you." She nodded at Annie.
With a small smile, Annie moved to join the food line-up. What was for dinner was questionable like always, but it was food, and the female medic was starving. Margot, on the other hand, had no desire to eat at all, so she moved over to a tree and sat down at the base of it, her knees tucked up to her chest.
Before long she was lost in thought, her mind racing about this and that, her internal thoughts simultaneously reminding her of the horrible things she had witnessed while also chastising her for being upset about them. She was supposed to be stronger than this.
As a silver cup dangled in front of Margot's face, she snapped out of her daze and looked up to see Toye offering her some food. Although she had no intentions of eating it, she took the cup out of politeness. "Thanks."
Before Joe could sit down beside her, the rumble of an engine caught everyone's attention and seconds later a jeep pulled up and Colonel Sink stepped out. "We're sitting down to a Christmas Eve dinner of turkey and hooch back at the division CP, but damned if I don't like ol' Joe Domingus' rancid ass beans better," he greeted the company, reminding Margot that it was, in fact, Christmas Eve. "Hello, Easy Company."
The company chorused a few 'hellos', each one weaker and less enthusiastic than the last. Even Annie couldn't muster a very cheery greeting. It was the first Christmas she was spending away without having received a letter from her family, and even though she knew that none of the Easy members were getting mail in the middle of the forest, she was still on edge about it.
"Men and women." Colonel Sink pulled out a piece of paper as he addressed the group. "General McAuliffe wishes us all a Merry Christmas. What's merry about all this, you ask? Just this. We've stopped cold everything that's been thrown at us from the North, East, South, and West. Now, two days ago the German Commander demanded our honourable surrender to save the USA encircled troops from total annihilation. The German Commander received the following reply, 'to the German Commander: NUTS!' We're giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present, and being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of arms, we are truly making for ourselves a Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you all and God bless you."
"Nuts!" a few of the men shouted, the reply having tickled their funny bones.
●●●
"Merry Christmas everyone," Annie greeted as she stepped over the fallen tree trunk before sitting down on it beside Luz, a warm cup of coffee in her hands that she had just collected from Winters. "And Happy Hanukkah, Lieb."
"Merry Christmas," everyone returned, excluding Liebgott, who breathed out an airy, "Happy Hanukkah."
Most of the men had settled into their foxholes for the night but Margot hadn't wanted to go to sleep yet, so she stayed up talking with Toye, which then attracted Guarnere over, and then Luz, Liebgott, and eventually Annie. Before long, the six Easy Company Paratroopers were talking and laughing and, in general, just trying to make the most out of their Christmas Eve.
"This might sound really sad, but I think this is the best Christmas Eve I have had since my mother passed." Margot found herself telling the others for no other reason than she found the conclusion odd and wanted to share it.
Guarnere thought for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, that is sad."
The group broke out into soft chuckles, trying their best to keep their voices down. In the distance, the Germans could be heard faintly singing Christmas carols, which was oddly comforting when you chose to forget that the men singing the sweet songs about love and family also wanted to kill you as soon as they got the chance.
"I miss being home the most during the holidays," Annie admitted as she took a sip of her coffee, closing her eyes slightly and enjoying the feeling of the warm liquid running down her throat. "Winslow family Christmas is a big affair. All the extended family and whatnot. Lots of food, lots of presents."
"Luz family Christmas is the same," Luz piped up as he fished a smoke out of his front pocket and lit it. "Lots of noise, lots of people. Wouldn't trade it for the world."
Margot smirked as she looked at Toye and Liebgott, the two quieter men of the bunch. They were usually just content in sitting and listening, which she could respect. So, she decided to give them a story to listen to.
Margot cleared her throat before speaking. "I do remember one Christmas though when I was pretty young and my mom was still around. That year I got a sled under the tree from Santa. I was the happiest little kid in the world because, you see, there was this huge hill at the end of my long country road where all the farmers' kids and whoever else lived around there would go sledding. I had never had a sled though, so before then, I could never play with the other kids. So, of course, the first thing I wanted to do that Christmas morning was go sledding. So I got dressed, grabbed my brand new sled, and walked all the way down to the end of the road. Kids were sledding and parents were watching and making small talk.
"I climbed all the way up to the top of the hill, watched a few kids go down, and then just kinda went for it. No planning, no caution. I just sat down on my sled and went. What I failed to realize, however, was that there were two sides of the hill. One was just a flat, normal hill for the younger kids. The other side, the one I went down, had little snow ramps for the older kids. Long story short, I hit like three of those ramps in a row, went flying, smacked down into the snow, rolled the rest of the way down, and never went sledding again. To this day I am terrified of sledding."
By the time Margot was done telling her slightly embarrassing story, all five of her friends were doubled over laughing. Even Liebgott, who thus far had only cracked a small smile here and there, had tears fall down his cheeks.
"Guys, it's not funny, I was traumatized," Margot tried to explain, her own words coming out in between fits of giggles, which only made everyone else laugh even harder.
"I just can't stop picturing little Margot, all bundled up and ready to go, flying through the air like a goddamn football." Guarnere cackled before he wiped his eyes and took a series of deep breaths.
Annie had her hand on Luz's shoulder, stabilizing herself as she tried not to spill her coffee all over the place. Her laughter was something of pure joy, and when she really laughed, her whole body was involved. Her eyes screwed shut, she smiled so wide that you could see her dimples, and she would have to hold on to something to keep from falling to the ground in a pile of giggles.
Luz loved it when Annie laughed like that, and he loved it even more when it was him who made her laugh like that. Sometimes the medic would go days without even smiling, so it was a relief to see her truly relaxing and enjoying herself.
Even Toye was cracking up, which was a good sign in anyone's book. If Joe Toye was having fun, everyone was having fun.
After a few minutes, the contagious laughter turned to heavy breathing and the German singing could be heard once more as it echoed through the cold, winter night. A silence fell over the group, but it wasn't a tense silence—not a silence that was begging to be broken but one that brought with it feelings of contentment and inner peace.
Annie wished it could always be like that. If there were a way she could bring over a cup of warm coffee, offer it to a German soldier, ask for a truce, and sing Christmas carols for the rest of the night, she would do it in a heartbeat. She would do anything to have the whole war end right there and then so she and her friends could sit, talk, and laugh for the rest of their lives.
Staring across at Margot, who was tucked in between Guarnere and Toye, Annie smiled at the woman she considered to be family. "I love you, Margot," she told her, the words sort of coming out of left field, but feeling right. "You're my sister and I love you and even though I'm freezing my ass off, I'm glad I get to spend Christmas with you."
Margot was a little shocked by the sentiment at first, but there was never even a second where she doubted that she felt the same way. "I love you too, Annie."
There was a short pause where the two women just sort of smiled at each other, but of course, before long, the sweet moment was ruined by the one and only, Luz. "I love you, Bill." He mocked the girls in a friendly fashion as he batted his eyelashes at Guarnere.
Guarnere chuckled as he took a puff of his cigarette. "Love you too, George."
"I love you, Liebgott." Luz set his sights on the man sitting on the other side Annie.
At first, Liebgott just rolled his eyes, making it clear that he wanted nothing to do with whatever nonsense was going on; but after being stared down by the group for almost a full minute, he gave in. "I love you too, George."
Then it took off. Everyone was telling each other that they loved them, half serious and half joking. At one point Luz was confessing his undying love for Liebgott and Annie and Guarnere were in a 'love off' trying to outcompete each other with much love they had for the Germans.
Guarnere said he would spend a whole night in a foxhole with the entire German army while Annie stated that she would sign on to be Hitler's personal medic for the rest of her life.
In the chaos of affection, Margot turned to Joe while everyone was distracted and smiled. "I love you, Joe," she whispered, her voice soft and her words loose with meaning, allowing him to take the sentiment whichever way he wanted.
Joe opened his mouth to say something back, possibly to return the sentiment, possibly to make a classic Joe Toye remark. Before he could get a word out, a familiar sound filled the air, an explosion went off not too far from where they were sitting, and the ground shook violently.
"MEDIC!"